Quote Originally Posted by Vindec View Post
The paper I quoted was written by the Welsh government. Of course central government has a say in the arrangements but an earlier post of mine pointed out that the Welsh and Scots governments were involved which their own paper confirms and you will probably agree all 3 countries follow broadly the English arrangements with regard to lockdowns, testing and quarantines with tweaks around the edges. Also an earlier post of mine stated:

" However, I agree the test and trace arrangements are farcical. I live in Devon; people are being told to go 20 miles for a test but then discover Swansea is 20 miles by sea but a 300 miles round trip by road. It's a joke."

Incidentally I was very surprised to hear on the radio this morning that, even with out shambolic test and trace system, the UK is testing more than Germany per day - a country which is held up as being an example to us all.

Just to put the record straight I am no supporter of the test and trace arrangements and think things are going to get more challenging for the government when students who man many of the testing centres return to University/College. The government contractors SERCO seem to have avoided criticism so far so let's see what happens going forward.
Fair enough, I'd still say that under the current arrangements, the Welsh and Scottish Governments are never wholly in control of their test and trace regimes (this applies especially to Wales) when something like we saw at Porth can happen - seems to me that the UK Government will always have the equivalent of a casting vote in this country.

Germany is an interesting point of comparison with the UK Government, because I believe you're right about the number of tests they do compared to us. While mainland Europe has seen a big rise (new case numbers are higher than in the spring in some countries), Germany still has lower daily figures than us and their death figures remain very low relatively speaking - they seem to be getting more from their system than us despite our resources and spending being arguably greater than theirs.